You are crying because Apple does not support a 4 years old phone via software?
Samsung S7 (2016) does not support Android 9 (2018).
Oh ok... well that’s just something some guy on the Internet made up, so you can just ignore that post. Problem solved.
Indeed, and if this did happen, all devices in my home would be obsolete? Really, Apple?
I hope an SE sized phone comes back as the iPhone Mini. It would be an instant hit. I don’t need or want to watch videos on my phone. That’s what the iPad is for. And Apple TV. C’mon Cook, you can do it!
A questionable and unconfirmed rumor from Israeli site The Verifier suggests that Apple's iOS 13 update, expected to be previewed this summer at the Worldwide Developers Conference, will drop support for a number of iPhones and iPads.
The site says iOS 13 will be unavailable on the iPhone 5s, iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus, all devices that are compatible with iOS 12.
As for iPads, The Verifier believes Apple will drop support for the iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, iPad Air, iPad Air 2, and possibly the iPad mini 4. The sixth-generation iPod touch is listed as a device that will also be incompatible with iOS 13.
If this rumor is true, and we don't know that it is because The Verifier did not provide details on where the information is from or how it was obtained, it would see Apple dropping support for three generations of iPhones at one time, a move that seems somewhat unlikely.
Apple aims to provide software updates for its iOS devices for as long as possible. Both iOS 12 and iOS 11 offered support for the iPhone 5s and newer, the iPad mini 2 and newer, and the iPad Air and newer. At the time iOS 12 launched, some of those devices were five years old.
Dropping support for everything up to the iPhone 7 would leave iOS 13 compatible only with iOS devices from 2016 or later. Two of those devices, the iPad mini 4 and the sixth-generation iPod touch, are current-generation devices, though they may not be by the time iOS 13 launches as updates for both are in the works.
To cast further doubt on the site's claims, it lists the iPhone 6s as a device that won't support iOS 13 without naming the fifth-generation iPad. Both the fifth-generation iPad and the iPhone 6s use the A9 chip.
The Verifier claims that in addition to dropping support for iOS 13 on a wide swath of devices, Apple will also restrict some iOS 13 features to newer models to "make as many users upgrade to the latest models of iPhones." While it's true there are sometimes iOS features limited to newer devices because of hardware limitations, Apple has a long history of supporting older devices for years after launch.
The Verifier has previously provided semi-accurate info on Apple's plans. In 2017, for example, the site said Apple would bring Group FaceTime to iOS 11. We did get Group FaceTime, but not until iOS 12.1 in 2018.
Update: The Verifier has updated the original article to list the lack of iOS 13 support for the iPhone SE and iPhone 6s as "questionable" rather than concrete.
Article Link: Questionable Rumor Suggests iOS 13 Will Drop Compatibility for iPhone 5s Through iPhone 6s [Updated]
Yes the rumor is ridiculous. Apple is still manufacturing and selling the 6S, SE and mini 4. The claim that they would stop supporting a device they’re still selling is quite unbelievable.
People just invent new ways of spinning the fact that phones were slowed down to preserve battery life when battery levels were low and the battery was getting old. As Apple didn't tell anyone they were doing this, some people upgraded their phones thinking that the problem was with the hardware itself rather than some iOS feature slowing it down so that you didn't run out of battery.
I'd expect the battery to run down in an hour, too. Ignoring the fact that overuse of animation causes users to perceive their devices as slow, it also has a very real cost in terms of the hardware's usability.
Plus, even if they did redo the home screen in some crazy way, each device has its own build of iOS, so there's nothing stopping them from shipping the existing springboard for old hardware and a new, whiz-bang springboard for devices that support it. The extra effort to maintain springboard should be almost zero at this point anyway, making that almost a no-op in terms of effort.
So the justification just isn't there. The only valid threshold is when the fallout from the devices turning into a botnet is exceeded by the engineering costs of continuing to ship security updates for the devices. For the early devices, this was easy, because they didn't have any sales. As time passed, each model sold more units than the previous model, and was used by people for longer than the previous generation, so the support periods are necessarily stretching.
I can pretty much guarantee they won't drop the 6s, though. David Smith has a regularly updated set of graphs and charts telling the breakdown of hardware that runs one of his apps. Although this isn't guaranteed to be a representative sample, it's a pretty strong indication of what devices are in active use. And the aggregate of his numbers are within about +/- 10% of various other industry groups' aggregate statistics for various groups of devices, which makes me suspect that they are probably all at least in the right ballpark.
Here are the top 5 most popular iPhone models:
Yes, that's right. The iPhone 6s is still #1. Apparently they'll have to pry the headphone jack from our cold, dead hands.
- iPhone 6s: 12.3%
- iPhone 7: 10.2%
- iPhone 6: 10.1%
- iPhone SE: 6.9%
- iPhone 6s+: at 5.8%
If this rumor were correct, only one of the top five would still be supported, and only five out of the top ten. In fact, in tenth place at 3.6%, the venerable iPhone 5s still has more active users than the XR, XS, and XS Max combined (#16 at 1.5%, #25 at 0.6%, and #20 at 1.3%, respectively). In fact the XS is barely above the levels of the iPhone 4s, which has been unsupported since 2016. I'll let that sink in for a minute.
In fact, with the iPhone X coming in at 5.1%, Apple would make fewer users angry and cause less harm to the security of their platform by declaring Face ID (8.5% combined) to be a colossal mistake and dropping support for their entire flagship line than dropping support for the small-form-factor 5s and SE (10.5% combined). Similarly, current-generation Touch ID devices (the 7/7+/8/8+) outnumber Face ID devices by somewhere around a factor of 2.5. Hmm. Maybe it wasn't a good idea.
By my rough math, there are likely still on the order of 26 million iPhone 5s devices still being actively used actively, which is about the same as the total number of cellular phones in the state of California. If they dropped software updates for them, that would be one really freaking big botnet, with 4.5x as many devices as the most popular iPhone that Apple no longer supports (iPhone 5 at .8%).
In total, the 6/6+/6s/6s+ make up 31.2% of active devices by themselves. If you add the iPhone 5s and SE to that, the supposed list of products being dropped would be 41.7% of all iOS devices in active use (this includes iPads, iPod Touch). That would be tantamount to shutting down the entire platform.
In other words, don't make me laugh. This rumor is absurd.
That said, I will make some predictions:
I can't guarantee that these predictions will all be correct, but I doubt I'll be much more incorrect than this rumor.
- Given the insane popularity of the small form factor in spite of its age, I'd be willing to bet we'll see a refresh of the SE this year or next with the same SoC as the next generation of flagship phones.
- There is a small possibility that they may drop support for the 5s to further encourage adoption at the same time as the refresh, though I'd bet on waiting a year to let the 5s numbers drop down into fraction-of-a-percent territory before dropping support.
- I also expect to see a return of Touch ID on some models (probably through the screen) — possibly as soon as this year.
- We'll probably see native USB-C ports on new iPhone models this year, for better wired headphone compatibility and accessory sharing with Macs. Next year at the latest.
Some of us got our 6s battery replaced for free. But I agree a slow working phone, to me, was a better deal than upgrading before I’m ready to do so.
I remember when Steve Jobs first announced the iPhone which he said their goal was to sell one million iPhones.
I don’t think Apple intends to continue to make newer, small iPhones any longer, unfortunately for those that like the smaller form factor, including me. If they were going to release an SE2, I think they would have left the current SE for continued sale, instead of dropping it last September.
There’s a possibility that it's not just a matter of RAM, but anyway I seriously doubt that the 6s will be dropped this year. Now, iOS 13 performance on the 6s so bad that sticking to iOS 12 would be recommended is another possibility. Then again it may no longer be financially advisable for Apple to keep their iPhones supported for more than two or three updates. In other words, reduce prices a little and only give 3 updates, with the 3rd update being the “time to upgrade” performance degradation update.
